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Social choice theory demonstrates that majority rule is generically indeterminate. However, from an empirical perspective, large and arbitrary policy shifts are rare events in politics. The uncovered set (UCS) is the dominant preference-based explanation for the apparent empirical predictability of majority rule in multiple dimensions. Its underlying logic assumes that voters act strategically, considering the ultimate consequences of their actions. I argue that all empirical applications of the UCS rest on an incomplete behavioral model assuming purely egoistically motivated individuals. Beyond material self-interest, prosocial motivations offer an additional factor to explain the outcomes of majority rule. I test my claim in a series of committee decision-making experiments in which I systematically vary the fairness properties of the policy space while keeping the location of the UCS constant. The experimental results overwhelmingly support the prosociality explanation.

The tyranny of the majority is one of the most frequently discussed problems of democracy in political theory. It arises when winning majorities are fixed and permanent, and there are no checks on the majority’s ability to dominate the minority. In this paper, I investigate the effects of communication on the occurrence of majority domination. Theoretically, communication cuts both ways. On the one hand, forming and maintaining a coalition requires coordination between individuals, which is barely accomplishable without opportunities to communicate. On the other hand, communication strengthens prosocial orientations in groups and should thus prevent the permanent exclusion of minorities. I argue that publicity of communication is crucial. The prosocial effects of communication dominate when communication is public whereas exclusive majorities form under private communication. I test my claim in a series of laboratory experiments where five-member committees make distributional decisions using the voting mechanism ‘voting by veto’. Compared to a baseline treatment without communication, groups distribute benefits more equally when they have the opportunity to communicate in a public chat. When communication is private, however, majoritarian coalitions form that exclude a minority of group members from the distribution of benefits.

In light of the so-called ‘chaos theorems’ from social choice theory, William Riker (W. H. Freeman and Company, San Francisco, 1982) argues that the indeterminacy of majority rule leads to voting cycles making democratic decisions arbitrary and meaningless. Moreover, when the core is empty, majority instability correlates with the level of conflict among actors. This study uses laboratory committee decision-making experiments to provide an empirical test of both aspects of Riker’s argument. Committees make repeated majority decisions over 20 periods picking points from a two-dimensional policy space. The experiment manipulates committee members’ preferences and thus varies the existence of a core and the level of conflict between group members. The experimental results contradict Riker’s interpretation of the chaos theorems’ implications. Thus, the core exhibits less attraction than generally assumed. Moreover, an empty core is not associated with increased majority rule instability. Instead, conflicting preferences lead to more instability irrespective of the existence of an equilibrium.

Voting by Veto [VBV], developed by Dennis C. Mueller, is a two-stage voting mechanism for committee decision making. In the first stage, every member of the committee makes a proposal. The proposals are joined with the current status quo (or another fallback option). For the second stage, a random mechanism determines the order of voting and the committee members sequentially eliminate one alternative each. After every committee member has exercised her veto, a single winning alternative remains. Game theory predicts that the equality of the resulting distribution under VBV varies with group size. Hence, decisions in two-member groups should result in highly unequal distributions of benefits. With increasing group size, however, VBV should generate more equally distributed outcomes. We examine the effect of group size under VBV in a series of laboratory experiments where groups with a varying number of members play a ‘divide the dollar game’. Our results confirm that larger groups choose more equal distributions than smaller groups. However, we also find deviations from the model's predictions. Some committees in our experiment do not select Pareto-optimal alternatives. An exploratory analysis of possible explanations suggests that individual behavior is most likely motivated by a combination of material self-interest and social preferences such as reciprocity and fairness.

From a traditional rational choice perspective, coalitions are inherently unstable if collective decisions involve distributional conflicts. Empirically, however, many coalitions and distribution decisions seem rather stable. While traditional explanations for the empirical stability of coalitions refer to institutions, more recent theoretical developments argue that behavioral traits like actors’ strategic sophistication and prosociality have stabilizing effects. In this study, we provide a first empirical test of this theoretical claim. In a laboratory experiment, we measure subjects’ strategic abilities and their revealed social preferences. Then subjects are matched into three-person groups and play a real-time coalition formation game. Our data show that strategic subjects form more stable coalitions than myopic subjects. Prosocial subjects are more likely to agree on even allocations, and those allocations are more likely to last. Our results indicate that kind and strategically sophisticated people do not need institutions to reach stable coalitions that distribute resources evenly.

The so-called chaos theorems imply that, under most preference configurations, majority voting in n-dimensional policy spaces is theoretically unrestricted. Empirical research, however, shows an apparent stability of democratic decisions. Recent theoretical developments have emphasized social preferences as a possible explanation for overcoming majority rule’s instability problem. Hence, it is assumed that individuals not only maximize their own well-being, but also value distributional fairness. However, there is little experimental research into the influence of social preferences on majority decisions. This article presents findings from laboratory experiments on majority decisions in two-dimensional policy spaces with a systematic variation of the fairness properties of the incentive structures. The results show that distributional fairness is an important motivational factor in democratic decisions.

The ultimatum game is certainly one of the most extensively studied games in experimental research, yet little is known about the effects of reputation formation in repeated bilateral bargaining. This study presents a laboratory experiment to examine the role of reputation formation by varying the matching procedure. Under partner matching, players interact with the same opponent repeatedly throughout the whole experiment, which allows players to build up a personal reputation. Under perfect stranger matching, subjects meet only once in the course of the experiment and thus, cannot form a reputation of being tough bargainers. The results show that in particular responder behavior is influenced by the variation of the matching procedure. In the partner matching treatment, responders demand a higher share than in the stranger matching treatment. However, this does not lead to decreased efficiency as proposers offer more and thus avoid costly conflicts. Overall, reputation formation strengthens the influence of fairness considerations.

Spatial committee decision-making experiments provide ample evidence for the predictive power of the majority rule core if it is not empty. Furthermore, an empty core does not substantively reduce the stability of majority decision making. In this article, I put these two findings to a critical test using two preference configurations from Fiorina's and Plott's (1978) seminal committee experiments. In my experiment, committees with fixed individual preferences make multiple decisions over time. Contrary to the existing evidence, I find that results diverge from the core in the course of the experiment. In line with previous research, an empty core has no noticeable behavioral effects.

Als gemeinsamer Kern aller wirtschafts- und sozialwissenschaftlichen Definitionen des Institutionenbegriffs werden Institutionen als formelle und informelle Regeln verstanden, die okonomisches und politisches Handeln strukturieren, das heist, begrenzen und ermoglichen. In der Analyse von Politik und Okonomie lassen sich verschiedene Varianten des Institutionalismus voneinander unterscheiden. Dieser Beitrag diskutiert die epistemologischen und ontologischen Besonderheiten des Soziologischen Institutionalismus, des Historischen Institutionalismus und des Behavioralen Institutionalismus. Diese Gegenuberstellung wird dabei anhand der folgenden Fragen strukturiert: Wie werden Institutionen definiert? Wie und warum entstehen Institutionen? Wie wirken Institutionen auf Akteure, Interaktionen sowie politische und okonomische Entscheidungen? Wie und warum wandeln sich Institutionen? Der Beitrag zeigt, dass die verschiedenen Institutionalismen diese vier Fragen in der empirischen Analyse politischen und okonomischen Handelns auf jeweils spezifische Weise beantworten. Die jeweilige selektive Vorgehensweise erweist sich als nutzlich und notwendig, um den Wandel von Politischen Okonomien in seiner Gesamtheit verstehen und erklaren zu konnen. Mit anderen Worten: Die unterschiedlichen Institutionalismen stehen nicht notwendig in einem Konkurrenzverhaltnis zueinander, sondern konnen sich erganzen.

The Dunning-Kruger effect states that low performers vastly overestimate their performance while high performers more accurately assess their performance. Researchers usually interpret this empirical pattern as evidence that the low skilled are vastly overconfident while the high skilled are more accurate in assessing their skill. However, measurement error alone can lead to a negative relationship between performance and overestimation, even if skill and overconfidence are unrelated. To clarify the role of measurement error, we restate the Dunning-Kruger effect in terms of skill and overconfidence. We show that we can correct for bias caused by measurement error with an instrumental variable approach that uses a second performance as instrument. We then estimate the Dunning-Kruger effect in the context of the exam grade predictions of economics students, using their grade point average as an instrument for their exam grade. Our results show that the unskilled are more overconfident than the skilled. However, as we predict in our methodological discussion, this relationship is significantly weaker than ordinary least squares estimates suggest. (C) 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

This paper provides new evidence on gender bias in teaching evaluations. We exploit a quasi-experimental dataset of 19,952 student evaluations of university faculty in a context where students are randomly allocated to female or male instructors. Despite the fact that neither students' grades nor self-study hours are affected by the instructor's gender, we find that women receive systematically lower teaching evaluations than their male colleagues. This bias is driven by male students' evaluations, is larger for mathematical courses and particularly pronounced for junior women. The gender bias in teaching evaluations we document may have direct as well as indirect effects on the career progression of women by affecting junior women's confidence and through the reallocation of instructor resources away from research and towards teaching.

Voting by veto (VbV), developed by Dennis C. Mueller, is a two-stage voting mechanism for committee decision making. In the first stage, every member of the group makes a proposal. The proposals are listed with the status quo (or another fallback option). At the second stage a random mechanism determines the order of voting. Voting sequentially, the group members each eliminate one alternative. When everyone has used their veto, a single alternative remains. This alternative is the winner. VbV has several interesting theoretical properties: it is decisive, it satisfies neutrality, and it offers incentives leading to an equal distribution of payoffs. However, there is little empirical evidence on the workings of VbV. This paper presents results from a laboratory experiment examining the theoretical predictions of VbV in a ‘divide the dollar game’ played among five-member committees. The experimental results confirm that VbV leads to equal distributions of payoffs. The even split of payoffs among all five groups is the dominant outcome of the experiment.

Measuring workers’ productivity is important for public policy and private-sector decision-making. Due to a lack of reliable methods to determine workers’ productivity, firms often use specific performance measures, such as how different incentives affect employees’ behavior. The public sector also uses these measures to monitor and evaluate personnel, such as teachers. To select the right performance measures, and as a result design better employment contracts and improve productivity, policymakers and managers need to understand the advantages and disadvantages of the available metrics.

This paper analyses the effects of work-related training on worker productivity. To identify the causal effects from training, we combine a field experiment that randomly assigns workers to treatment and control groups with panel data on individual worker performance before and after training. We find that participation in the training programme leads to a 10 percent increase in performance. Moreover, we provide experimental evidence for externalities from treated workers on their untreated teammates: An increase of 10 percentage points in the share of treated peers leads to a performance increase of 0.51 percent. We provide evidence that the estimated effects are causal and not the result of employee selection into and out of training. Furthermore, we find that the performance increase is not due to lower quality provided by the worker.

What impact do majority rule and unanimity rule create on welfare and decision costs? According to Buchanan and Tullock ([1962] 1999) the unanimity principle must be regarded as a democratic norm, because it guarantees Pareto-efficient welfare effects. We present experimental results from a public goods game, which demonstrate in contrast to this assumption that majority rule can produce larger welfare effects than unanimity rule. This result suggests a critical revision of theoretical approaches which narrow the legitimacy of majority rule in this respect.

Conferences are an important element in the work of researchers, requiring substantial investments in fees, travel expenses and the time spent by the participants. The aim of this paper is to identify the preferences of participants with respect to conference characteristics. Based on a sample of european labour economists, preferences are measured using the vignette approach where participants are asked to choose between hypothetical european association of labour economists (eale) conferences. We find that the keynote speakers are the most important element in the preference for a conference, followed by the location of the conference. There is substantial heterogeneity in the taste of labour economists especially with respect to location, though the link between preference parameters and measured characteristics like gender, age and seniority is limited. Factor analysis suggests that the variety in preferences can be best described by a latent variable that reflects the weights people put on content versus fun.

Research on the formal properties of democratic aggregation mechanisms has a long tradition in political science. Recent theoretical developments, however, show that in the discussion of normative contents of democratic decisions, the actual shape of preferences deserves just as much attention. However, our knowledge about the concrete motivations of individual behavior in democratic decisions is incomplete. Using laboratory experiments, this article examines the existence of social preferences in majority decisions. Contrary to earlier experiments of committee decision making, we develop a design that controls for the conditions of communication and the level of information between subjects. This allows us to comparatively test the predictive power of several theories. We find strong evidence that self-interest and fairness motivate human behavior in majority decisions.

Workers' reciprocal behavior is one argument used to explain why firms invest in employee human capital. We explore the relation between firm-sponsored training and reciprocity by providing evidence that workers reciprocate employer training investments by making greater effort. Using a field experiment with random assignment to a training program, we show that reciprocal workers have significantly higher performance than their non-reciprocal peers after participation in the training course. This result suggests that reciprocal workers exert greater effort in response to the firm's investment.

This paper surveys the empirical literature on the behavior of referees in professional football and other sports. Referees are typically appointed by a principal to be impartial, especially when unbiased referee judgment is vital for the accomplishment of the principal's objective. Answering whether referees make biased decisions and understanding the causes that lead referees to digress from their principal duty of impartiality is therefore fundamental from a theoretical point of view. At the same time, assessing the prevalence and origin of referee bias is germane to various domains of life. Referee bias is particularly relevant in sports, where partial decision-making can determine competition outcomes, which can have strong repercussions on athletes' careers and supporters' well-being.

Many experiments comparing individual and group behavior find that groups behave more egoistically than individuals. However, most of these studies do not control for the influence of within-group decision-making rules that might have an important impact on group behavior. In this article, we report findings from laboratory experiments comparing individual and group behavior in a public goods game. We find that rather than cooperation levels differing between individuals and groups per se, the intragroup decision-making rule has an influence on the cooperativeness of groups. Groups decide either by majority or unanimity rule. While groups deciding by majority rule reach roughly the same level of cooperation as individuals, groups deciding by unanimity rule contribute significantly lower amounts to the public good. Introduction Theoretical assumptions about the cooperativeness of individuals and groups Experimental design and procedure Experimental results Conclusion Acknowledgements Notes References

Although the transfer of on-the-job training to the workplace belongs to the realm of educational research, it is also highly related to labour economics. In the economic literature, the transfer of training is based on the theoretical framework of human capital theory and has been extensively analysed empirically in econometric studies that take account of unobserved heterogeneity of workers and the selectivity in training participation. The aim of this paper is to give an overview of the underlying theoretical paradigm in economics, and the challenges faced in empirical research. The economic literature finds that participation in training is beneficial for both the participating workers and their employers, although there is also evidence that selectivity of workers matters. Despite this progress in the economic literature, the underlying processes through which training leads to a higher productivity remain unclear. We argue that this 'black box' offers opportunities for multi-disciplinary research projects on the transfer of training that relate the perspectives of educational and economic research. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

What impact do majority rule and unanimity rule have on welfare and decision costs? According to Buchanan and Tullock ([1962] 1999) the unanimity principle must be regarded as a democratic norm, because it guarantees Pareto-efficient welfare effects. We present experimental results from a public goods game, which demonstrate in contrast to this assumption that majority rule can produce greater welfare effects than unanimity rule. This result suggests a critical revision of theoretical approaches which narrow the legiti­macy of majority rule in this respect.

Conferences are an important element in the work of researchers, requiring substantial investments in fees, travel expenses and the time spent by the participants. The aim of this paper is to identify the preferences of participants with respect to conference characteristics. Based on a sample of European labour economists, preferences are measured using the vignette approach where participants are asked to choose between hypothetical European Association of Labour Economists (EALE) conferences. We find that the keynote speakers are the most important element in the preference for a conference, followed by the location of the conference. There is substantial heterogeneity in the taste of labour economists especially with respect to location, though the link between preference parameters and measured characteristics like gender, age and seniority is limited. Factor analysis suggests that the variety in preferences can be best described by a latent variable that reflects the weights people put on content versus fun.

In public policy, international migration of scientists and engineers is often seen as achance of recruiting the most talented and productive workers. However, it can alsobe a risk in terms of loosing a country’s talented workers. In this paper, we analysemigration of graduates from science and engineering studies from nine Europeancountries. Using a dataset with information on personal characteristics, previousmigration experience, as well as study- and work-related variables, we analyse thedeterminants of migrating to the country of the first job and to the country of subsequentjobs after graduation. We find that not only wage gains are driving the migrationdecision. Differences in labour market opportunities related to R&D spending area strong predictor of future migration. Furthermore, past migration experiences arerelated to a higher probability of labour migration. Moreover, we find evidence ofselective migration: the best graduates are most likely to migrate. Contrary to ourexpectation, qualitative aspects of the job match such as the utilisation of skills in thejob and involvement in innovation hardly seem to matter in the decision whetheror not to migrate. Interestingly, the wage level affects migration towards countriesin continental Europe, whereas Anglo-Saxon countries seem to attract migrants duetheir larger R&D intensity.

Fixed-term contracts are considerd as one of the most popular instruments of labour market flexibility. Although they provide new labour market options for employer and employees, it is argued that they may lead to decreasing investments in human capital. From the theoretical point of view it is not clear wheter a fixed-term contract is a drawback for the participation in work-related training. The paper deals with the influence of fixed-term contracts on work-related training especially for low-skilled workers. Based on the Micro Census data of 2004, we estimate a bivariate probit model for the probability of fixed-term employment and participating in work-related training. This model enables us to control for selection effects that may arise from unobservable factors. From the estimation results we can conclude that holding a fixed-term contract does not mean a systematical disadvantage for the training probability of low-skilled employees.

Ähnlich wie in anderen europäischen Ländern wurde der Einsatz von befristeten Beschäftigungsverhältnissen in Deutschland seit den 1980ern vereinfacht. Als Folge dieser Vereinfachungen nimmt die Bedeutung dieser Beschäftigungsform als Instrument zur Flexibilisierung der Arbeitsnachfrage gerade bei geringqualifiziert Beschäftigten zu. Obwohl die Möglichkeit von Befristungen Chancen für Arbeitgeber und Arbeitnehmer eröffnen, wird oft argumentiert, daß befristete Beschäftigungsverhältnisse eine Art „Sackgasse“ darstellen oder auch mit geringeren Investitionen in berufliche Weiterbildung verbunden sind. In diesem Beitrag wird daher untersucht, welchen Einfluß befristete Arbeitsverträge auf die Beteiligung an beruflicher Weiterbildung geringqualifiziert beschäftigter Personen hat. Würden solche Humankapitalinvestitionen negativ beeinflußt, hätte das für geringqualifizierte Personen besonders negative Auswirkungen, da sich ihre ohnehin problematische Stellung auf dem Arbeitsmarkt langfristig weiter verschlechtern würde. Die Ergebnisse der Untersuchung zeigen, daß die Befristung keinen Einfluß auf die Teilnahme geringqualifiziert Beschäftigter an beruflicher Weiterbildung hat. Eine andere Form atypischer Beschäftigung – Teilzeitbeschäftigung – verringert dagegen die Weiterbildungsbeteiligung.

Ähnlich wie in anderen europäischen Ländern wurde der Einsatz von befristeten Beschäftigungsverhältnissen in Deutschland seit den 1980ern vereinfacht. Als Folge dieser Vereinfachungen nimmt die Bedeutung dieser Beschäftigungsform zu. Der Vorteil befristeter Beschäftigungsverhältnisse für Arbeitgeber liegt vor allem in der Einsparung von institutionellen Kündigungskosten sowie der Möglichkeit einer „Verlängerung“ der Probezeit. Auf der Arbeitnehmerseite können befristete Beschäftigungsverhältnisse mit geringeren Aufstiegschancen oder unsicheren Erwerbsverläufen einhergehen. Daneben wird ein negativer Effekt auf Investitionen in berufliche Weiterbildung vermutet. Da dieser Zusammenhang in der theoretischen Diskussion nicht eindeutig ist, wird eine empirische Analyse für Deutschland durchgeführt. Im ersten Teil der Studie wird der Befristungseffekt für geringqualifiziert Beschäftigte mit Daten des Mikrozensus untersucht. Gerade für diese Gruppe wird lifelong learning als besonders notwendig angesehen, wenngleich Möglichkeiten zur Weiterbildung in der Realität nur eingeschränkt bereitgestellt und genutzt werden. Inhalt des zweiten Teils ist eine Analyse der Finanzierung beruflicher Weiterbildung auf Basis des Sozio- Oekonomischen Panels. Ziel ist dabei, Unterschiede im Investitionsverhalten zwischen Arbeitgebern und Arbeitnehmern aufzudecken. In beiden Teilen muss für einen möglichen Selektionseffekt aufgrund beobachtbarer oder unbeobachtbarer Heterogenitäten kontrolliert werden. Dazu wird zum einen eine Vergleichsgruppe für die befristet Beschäftigten konstruiert (Matchingverfahren), zum anderen wird eine simultane Probitschätzung durchgeführt. Für beide Teile der Analyse wird ein signifikanter Einfluss befristeter Beschäftigung auf Humankapitalinvestitionen nachgewiesen. Für Personen, die geringqualifizierte Tätigkeiten ausführen, findet sich ein signifikant positiver Effekt. Hinsichtlich der Finanzierung beruflicher Weiterbildung lässt sich ein negativer Befristungeseffekt auf Arbeitgeberinvestitionen nachweisen. Dagegen investieren befristet Beschäftigte mit höherer Wahrscheinlichkeit selbst in ihr Humankapital.

The effects of fixed-term contracts on participation and financing of work-related training are analysed with data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP). In contrast to previous literature, we especially distinguish between employer- and employee-sponsored training to allow for diverging investment patterns of worker and firm. In order to control for the selection bias arising from different characteristics of individuals with fixed-term and permanent contracts, a bivariate probit model is applied. The main findings are (i) that temporary workers are faced by lower investments, and (ii) that there are no differences with respect to employer- and employee-sponsored training.

Seit Januar 2005 wird die Höhe der Erwerbslosigkeit durch das Statistische Bundesamt nicht mehr nur jährlich, sondern monatlich bekannt gegeben. Damit gibt es in Deutschland neben der Statistik der registrierten Arbeitslosigkeit der Bundesagentur für Arbeit (BA) ein zweites Maß zur Arbeitslosigkeit, das monatlich veröffentlicht wird. Hinter dem Konzept der Erwerbslosigkeit steht das Ziel einer international vergleichbaren Statistik, die unabhängig von nationalen Besonderheiten in der Berechnung der registrierten Arbeitslosigkeit ist. Daher wurde von der International Labour Organisation (ILO) 1982 das Konzept der Erwerbslosigkeit eingeführt, das in der Europäischen Union im Rahmen der EU-Arbeitskräfteerhebung einheitlich angewendet wird. Mit dem Messkonzept der Erwerbslosigkeit soll das „ökonomische Ausmaß“ der Arbeitslosigkeit beschrieben werden, da unabhängig von einer Meldung bei der Agentur für Arbeit nur aktiv Arbeit suchende und gleichzeitig keiner Tätigkeit nachgehende Personen gezählt werden. Von der Arbeitslosenstatistik der BA können dagegen nur die bei den Agenturen für Arbeit registrierten Personen erfasst werden. Trotz Wirtschaft im Wandel 4/2005 93 dieser weitreichenderen Definition der Erwerbslosenstatistik ist auch sie nicht in der Lage, alle Teilnehmer an Maßnahmen der aktiven Arbeitsmarktpolitik oder entmutigte Arbeitslose zu berücksichtigen. Die beiden Messkonzepte unterscheiden sich nicht nur in den Abgrenzungen, auch die Art der Erhebung ist grundsätzlich verschieden: Die Zahlen zur Erwerbslosigkeit werden vom Statistischen Bundesamt im Rahmen des Mikrozensus, einer 1%-Stichprobe der Bevölkerung, ermittelt. Die Höhe der registrierten Arbeitslosigkeit wird dagegen von der BA aus ihren Verwaltungsvorgängen bestimmt. Dadurch ist im Gegensatz zur Erwerbslosenstatistik, die mit einmonatiger Verspätung veröffentlicht wird, eine zeitnahe und zudem sehr detaillierte Statistik gewährleistet. Beide Statistiken haben ihre Vor- und Nachteile, keine kann generell als die „bessere“ bezeichnet werden. Vielmehr muss abhängig von der Fragestellung entschieden werden, welche Statistik gewählt wird.

This paper investigates how newly hired workers learn on the job and the extent to which this learning is affected by their co-workers’ tenure. We estimate tenure-performance profiles using weekly panel data on individual workers’ performance. The results show a performance increase of 64% in the first year of the employment. We show that, during the first three months, workers placed in teams with more experienced peers have significantly steeper tenure-performance profiles than those employed in teams with less experienced peers. Our results suggest that placing new workers in more experienced teams reduces the time new hires need to become equally productive as an experienced worker by 36%, compared to being placed in less experienced teams.Keywords: Tenure-performance profiles, Peer effects, On-the-job learning,Call centers

Research on the formal properties of democratic aggregation mechanisms has a long tradition in political science. Recent theoretical developments, however, show that in the discussion of normative contents of democratic decisions, the actual shape of preferences deserves just as much attention. However, our knowledge about the concrete motivations of individual behavior in democratic decisions is incomplete. Using laboratory experiments, this article examines the existence of social preferences in majority decisions. Contrary to earlier experiments of committee decision making, we develop a design that controls for the conditions of communication and the level of information between subjects. This allows us to comparatively test the predictive power of several theories. We find strong evidence that self-interest and fairness motivate human behavior in majority decisions.

Verhalten sich kollektive Akteure in Verhandlungen anders als individuelle Akteure? Ein kurzer Blick auf realweltliche Verhandlungen verdeutlicht die Relevanz dieser Frage. In vielen Situationen treffen Verhandlungsteams kleiner oder mittlerer Grose aufeinander. So verhandeln Parteien miteinander uber die Bildung einer Regierung oder die Ausgestaltung von Gesetzen. Auf internationaler Ebene handeln Regierungen Vertrage und Abkommen aus, und in Tarifverhandlungen legen Gewerkschaften und Arbeitnehmerverbande Arbeitsbedingungen und Lohne fest. Die Liste an Beispielen liese sich sicherlich beliebig fortschreiben. Die hier getroffene Auswahl zeigt allerdings deutlich, dass die Beteiligung kollektiver Akteure an Verhandlungen eher die Regel als die Ausnahme ist. Die Analyse von Verhandlungen mit Beteiligung von Gruppen umfasst somit mindestens zwei Ebenen (Putnam 1988: 433). Auf der Intra- Gruppenebene mussen sich die einzelnen Mitglieder einer Gruppe intern auf eine Verhandlungsstrategie einigen. Das heist, sie mussen entscheiden, welche Angebote sie der Gegenseite unterbreiten, oder wie sie auf Angebote anderer Akteure reagieren. Auf der daruber liegenden Inter-Gruppenebene kommt es schlieslich zu den eigentlichen Verhandlungen zwischen den Gruppen, in denen die Reprasentanten versuchen, ein moglichst gutes Ergebnis fur ihre eigene Gruppe herauszuholen.